PPA or buy outright? You are trading ownership for cash flow.
A power purchase agreement puts solar on your roof at no upfront cost and sells you the electricity it makes. That is a genuinely useful structure for a business that cannot or will not spend capital. It is also a long contract over an asset you do not own, and the things that decide whether it was a good idea are mostly things you can only fix before signing. The good news: PPAs are explicitly inside the New Energy Tech Consumer Code, which gives a small business more leverage than most realise.
Reviewed by the Mission Green commercial team · Updated August 2026
What you are
actually agreeing to.
Three arrangements get discussed interchangeably and they are not the same.
You own the asset
You pay for the system, you own it, and the renewable energy certificates created at installation are yours — normally assigned to the installer as an upfront discount.
You buy the output
A provider owns the system on your roof and sells you the electricity it generates at an agreed rate. No upfront cost, and no ownership.
You rent the equipment
Fixed payments for the equipment regardless of what it generates. The payment does not flex with output the way a PPA rate does.
The distinction that matters most is not the payment shape, it is who owns the system. Ownership decides who is entitled to the certificates created at installation, who carries the performance and maintenance obligation, and who has to be dealt with if anything about the building changes.
Under a purchase, the certificates are yours and normally assigned to your installer as a discount on the invoice. Under a PPA, the system is not yours — so that value sits with the provider, and it is already reflected in the rate you are offered rather than arriving as a discount you can see.
PPAs are inside
the consumer code.
This is the part small businesses most often do not know.
The New Energy Tech Consumer Code defines new energy tech as small-scale residential or small business products, systems and services, and its published examples explicitly include power purchase agreements (PPAs) and electric vehicle charging services alongside solar PV and storage. The code is authorised by the ACCC.
Its standards commit Approved Sellers to specific behaviour that is directly useful when you are reading a PPA. Marketing must be honest and clear, with no pressure-selling, and extra care taken where a customer may be vulnerable. Offers must be fit for purpose for your site. Quotes must give comprehensive details including expected performance and any limitations, an itemised list of inclusions, a breakdown of costs, and your rights and obligations. Contracts must address all aspects of the quote, including variance from it, applicable warranties, and issues you should particularly note.
Read that list against a PPA offer. "Expected performance and any limitations" is exactly the disclosure that tells you what happens when generation is lower than modelled. A provider who will not put it in the quote is not meeting the standard they claim.
What to resolve
before you sign anything.
Every one of these is cheap to ask now and expensive to discover later.
What is the rate, and what escalates it? A PPA rate that rises annually can start below grid and finish above it. Ask for the rate across the full term next to a flat line, and decide whether you still like it in year twelve.
What happens if you do not use the generation? If your operations change, shifts drop or the site's load falls, are you buying power you no longer need? This is the question that separates a PPA from a lease in practice.
What happens if you sell or vacate the building? The system stays on the roof. Ask specifically whether the agreement transfers to a new owner or occupier, what happens if they will not take it on, and what it costs to exit. This single question has stalled more property settlements than any technical fault.
Who maintains it, and what is the performance guarantee? Under a PPA the provider owns the asset, so maintenance should be theirs. Get the guarantee in writing, and get the remedy in writing — a guarantee with no stated remedy is a sentiment.
What are the buyout terms and when do they apply? If buying out is the plan, the price and the timing need to be in the contract, not in conversation.
So what should
your business actually do?
Short version.
If capital is genuinely unavailable, a PPA is a real option rather than a trick. Plenty of businesses cannot spend six figures on a roof and would rather have the cheaper electricity now. That is a legitimate trade.
If capital is available, model the purchase properly before ruling it out. Ownership keeps the certificate value, the asset and the flexibility. The right comparison is over the full PPA term, not over the first year.
Check the provider is a NETCC Approved Seller. The code covers PPAs for small business explicitly, and it gives you a standard to hold a quote against rather than only your own judgement.
Resolve the building question first if you do not own the building. A PPA on a roof you lease involves three parties, and the one not in the room is your landlord.
PPAs and buying outright:
your questions, answered.
A power purchase agreement is an arrangement where a provider installs and owns a solar system on your site at no upfront cost to you, and sells you the electricity it generates at an agreed rate. You are buying the output rather than the asset.
A PPA charges you per unit of electricity the system actually delivers, so the payment moves with generation. A lease charges predetermined payments for the equipment regardless of what it produces. Under both, the system is not yours.
The system owner does, which under a PPA is the provider rather than you. When you buy a system outright the certificates are yours, and they are normally assigned to your installer and passed back as an upfront discount on the invoice. Under a PPA that value is already reflected in the rate you are offered rather than appearing as a discount you can see.
Yes. The code's published material defines new energy tech as small-scale residential or small business products, systems and services, and lists power purchase agreements explicitly among its examples alongside solar PV, storage and EV charging services. The code is authorised by the ACCC, and its standards cover honest advertising, no pressure-selling, fitness for purpose, comprehensive quoting including limitations, and contracts addressing all aspects of the quote.
That depends entirely on the contract, which is why it has to be read before signing rather than at settlement. Ask specifically whether the agreement transfers to a new owner or occupier, what happens if they decline to take it on, and what an exit costs. It is one of the most common ways a PPA becomes a problem.
It is cheaper today and not necessarily cheaper across the term. The honest comparison is the PPA rate over its full length, including any escalation, against an outright purchase on the same generation assumptions with the certificate value included. Ask for that comparison in writing; a cash-flow contrast is not a value comparison.
Where these figures come from.
The consumer-code position below comes from the code's own published material. We have not published PPA rates or term lengths, because those are set per contract and any figure we quoted would be decoration.